Show #29 – Monday, April 1, 2019 (Florida Derby recap)

***Please note this was done with AI and likely contains errors and inaccuracies. ***

Your listening to the, in the money players podcast. Hello, and welcome to the end, the money players podcast. This is show number 29. It is April 1st, 2019. Yes, indeed. The April fool’s edition on this Monday of the, in the money players podcast. I’m your host, Peter Thomas foreign, a towel. Back with you in the Brooklyn bunker once again, after a month of peregrinations around the globe.

Well, not really just London, a little Manchester back to London and long Island, but very happy to be back in the bunker back in Brooklyn today. And I am joined by a man who is nobody’s full. He is the people’s champion. Jonathan kitchen. What’s up, Jake. Hey, what’s going on PTF? Uh, yeah, uh, Haven’t been a champion a long time.

I forgot what it’s like to win something. I need to remind myself quickly. Does that mean that your adventures in Chicago at the Hawthorne invitationals did not go well this weekend? Well, they were, uh, when we, we did have some victories, um, uh, we got, uh, some pancakes for Austin. That was a victory. We got ice cream for Austin, Shirley temples for Austin.

Um, uh, what else did we get? Uh, we got a free ride Todd from our buddy. Mike Mulvihill dropped us off at the airport on the way home. Fairly good things happened. But we did not. We did not do well in the contest. No, our mutual joy. Did you see my latest piece about Benny South street and his drink of choice?

Did you notice that in the last piece? No. I haven’t seen that. What is his drink of choice is a dirty Shirley temple, which is basically a regular Shirley temple with a shot of bonded rye in it, which is a very Benny thing to drink. I think. I thought, like, I thought it was like a Shirley temple with olive juice now that’s true.

Foul. Um, he’s insists. It’s good. He’s just like, it’s a high ball with a little Granity and what’s wrong with that? I guess he once saw a kid drinking. It thought it looked good. Wanted one, thought it needed a little more octane and you know, th that, that’s why Benny is Benny. He did a pretty nice job on those trip notes for.

The Florida Derby card over on the, in the money podcast blog. Gosh, we have so much to talk about JK. We’ve got program announcements. We’ve got old races to talk about, and we’ve got some production meeting in the middle of the show slash exciting announcements for listeners. I’m going to let you produce, where should we start?

Let’s start with, uh, the thing I’m kind of the most excited about. Let’s talk about, uh, Friday night in, uh, in Lexington. It’s going to be great. I’ll start with that. Very excited to announce our partnership with Keeneland for the spring meet, we’re going to be doing some extra podcasts for them. They will be under their own banner production meeting in the middle of the show.

Have we decided on a name for these shows? I don’t think we have crushing, crushing Keelan with with two days. I don’t know. That’s, that’s, that’s one K short of trouble. We’re gonna, we might have to come up with something else, but I think what we might do. Well, first of all, props to Keeneland, you know, we accidentally stole the name of their podcast and yet they still wanted to do business with us.

So that’s pretty special and cool. And basically what it’s going to be. We’re not going daily for Keenan, that it could, if this all works out, maybe that’s a model down the line, but we’re going to be doing a couple of shorter. Typically shows that focus on one day of action. So my thought was the middle of this week, we do some evergreen content.

Previewing the meat and take a quick look at Thursday and Friday, then Saturday, Caitlin, we’re going to cover on the regular late week in the money players podcast. Then Sunday we’ll come back once again with a, maybe a 20 minute show, just looking at like the late pick four at Keeneland, and it will be named, it will have its own name.

It will appear in this feed, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. And we’re very excited to work with Kaitlin and Kaitlin select in a lot of ways, kind of a dream come true. Really. You know, who I’m excited to see run on Sunday. If everything I’ve heard is true. I think this is going to be the three-year-old debut of.

Newspaper of record, is that right? That’s right. Fantastic. Um, and it might require some changing travel plans for me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick around Sunday or not, but obviously very much worth sticking around to see newspaper record run. And that’s probably the answer to one of the questions I was going to ask you, or might ask you still in one of these upcoming Caitlin podcasts, what race are you looking most forward to?

Or what’s a, who’s a horse you’re most looking forward to seeing run at Keeneland JK. That’s the, the Appalachian. Right. And then someone say, uh, then they’re like a joke about that. That’s there’s, there’s a right and wrong way to say Appalachia. Maybe Nick tomorrow. Told me that, uh, Kurt Becker, let him know.

It’s not the Apple Laken. It’s the Appalachia when you’re in Kentucky. Yeah. Very glad that saved me. Another, a debacle, those Lynn folks, we know they’re stickers for pronunciation Al  Al  Al survives. It should be a lot of fun this weekend. And that sounds right. Cause last year it was rushing fall. Made the w in the equivalent spot this year, newspaper of record, supposedly a tilt and ask it potentially on the cards we will see.

I don’t think anything’s official in that regard yet, but boy, what an amazing story that will be to follow throughout the year. Let’s hope she gets back to the races and in good form. But I tilted from where you originally brought this conversation. We are going to be kicking off Friday night at Bell’s in downtown town, Lexington after the races.

So approximately six 37 o’clock. And there’s no cover. Come on down. We’re going to have a little presentation with Jake Ballis of black type thoroughbreds and also professional horseplayer Mike Maloney, author of bedding with an edge and you and me, and we’re going to talk through some racists, talk through some angles, have a few adult beverages.

Does belts have food? Can we have some snacks too? I don’t think they do. They, uh, none of them to have food. Um, not that I’m aware of, but if I had to vote, the vote would be no, no, sir, whatever. So we’ll, we’ll that probably means the program will be a little shorter and then we’ll walk down the block and go see Jenny at the village.

Idiot. It’ll be great. It’s right around the corner from bill. That won’t be a problem at all. We can definitely get some food. They’re getting a getting tablespace Friday night at Caitlyn could be an issue, but anyway, we’ll eat, eat heartily at the track, have a snack come down and join us after the races, that’s going to be a lot of fun.

We might also be doing something at that event. In a benefit of the thoroughbred retirement foundation who are actually bringing you this show today. And I just keep encouraging people. Folks have had a little bit of luck lately following our tips and asking us, giving us prompts. We don’t ask much. We love the props of course, but Hey, if you ever hit something big off something we say, or if you’re just feeling generous and want to support the show, the link that we want you to donate.

TRF Inc org slash players. Then we get the credit for it. Makes us look good. Makes everybody feel good. Thoroughbred retirement foundation, doing great work for decades now with humans, with horses. And it’s an organization that I know we both support heartily. Isn’t that right? JK. Absolutely. Anytime we have an opportunity to give back to these equine athletes and also the, uh, The human athletes, uh, from time to time, it’s always something that I definitely support.

All right. So keep your eyes on the feed and if you’re going to be in Lexington, if you can make it to Lexington, come join us Friday night after the races at Bell’s downtown. If you have any questions about any of this stuff, hit us up, you can either go to in the money podcast.com, leave a comment there, or you can hit us up on Twitter at looms boldly here at UT big hair.

There. All right. Let’s should we get the, let’s get the tough stuff out of the way. You good with that tough stuff out of the way. So racing returned to Santa Anita. There was this very unfortunate news about another equine fatality to my surprise, this made national news once again, and I don’t want to sound like insensitive.

This is one of these conversations is just so awful to have, but it’s my belief that, uh, just being honest is the best policy when it comes to this stuff. And. If the goal for racing is to never have another equine fatality. And like, if that’s the goal full stop, that’s the goal. We should be working towards the same way that it’s good sometimes to have, you know, my goal might be to, to, to, I don’t know when the New York city marathon.

I’m not going to win the New York city marathon by trying to win the New York city marathon. I’m probably going to run a lot better marathon than if my goal was to run a four and a half hour marathon in the same way. The goal of never having a fatality is a good goal that should be pushed towards that will probably make us a better sport.

However, if that’s the goal full stop. I got some bad news. You, you can’t have racing without, uh, some equine fatalities and. It sounds awful to ever say there’s an acceptable amount of fatality, but I think in the same way that we accept, we all love our pets. You know, I’m a massive dog lover. We got mugs, the handicapping Labrador right here beside me as she is most every show she sleeps in the bed with us.

We love her. She’s a member of the family. The same way that we accept having pets, even though we know the by-product of unfortunately having pets, dogs and cats is the breeding accidentally. And sometimes intentionally have too many where you get in a situation where a number of animals are either going to be mistreated or unfortunately put down in various ways.

It’s, it’s very ugly. We don’t like to think about it. It is. A really unfortunate byproduct of having dogs and cats to me with pets, the joy that the pets bring is worth the awful stuff in much the same way that the off of the, what racing brings, what racing gives us as human beings. I mean, it’s, I mean, I guess it doesn’t sound great when I say it out loud, but it’s how I feel.

It’s. It’s acceptable to have a certain amount of fatalities it. If we didn’t feel this way, the only other alternative would be to go completely to the other side and say, racing has to go, pets have to go. We have to phase them out. We have to get to a point where there can be none of this dark stuff happening.

I just don’t believe that’s the world that we want to live in. It’s nuanced. It’s complex. It’s ugly, just like life itself in a lot of ways. But. I am okay with trying to make it better, but understanding that, making it better doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen. If that’s the standard we set for ourselves, JK we’ve already failed.

Yeah. It’s an a, it’s an impossible goal to, to, to be, um, To be a mortal in this sport, right. It’s just not going to happen. It’s just the nature of the animal. The nature of the beast, I guess, is, is what it is now. I agree. It’s if the goal is for. To eliminate it. Totally. We have to do a whole lot of different things and different things we would have to do to eliminate it totally would probably eliminate it.

Totally. Right. The race racing as a whole, not just, I don’t agree, actually. I don’t think you could ever eliminate a totally, I mean, you hear stories about horses in paddocks. Just being turned out, find ways to get themselves in trouble. A beagle. We once had a guy with some breeding experience on the show and he said that a lot of what you’re doing when you’re taking care of a race horses, keeping them from killing themselves.

Like they’re the idea of zero fatality to me. It is, it is not realistic. Do you disagree apparently? No, I don’t think that it’s not, no, I don’t think that it can be solved. My point is, is that if that’s the goal, you’d have to change so many things in racing. That it wouldn’t be racing. Right. You know, you would never want to fully extend a horse.

You would, you would just have them kind of Gallop around their Gallup and racing and not, you know, to eliminate it fully. You’d have to change the whole. It wouldn’t even work. I mean, and the key part is it wouldn’t even work. You’d still have fatalities under these circumstances and you’d lose. What was great about the sport in a lot of ways.

Now I’m not some vigorous defender of the whip or anything. Again, for a long time, I’ve been in favor of changing whip rules. And I’ve been talking about that on this show for years. So I have documents to back that up. It’s not that I’m against that stuff, but when you put these things forward in like a haphazard way as if they’re the answer to this other question, that’s just dishonest and not correct.

And setting yourself up to fail. I’m sorry. I hijacked your conversation. No, I completely agree. I think I, I think it’s, uh, it’s definitely, it’s definitely something that needs to be addressed. Um, unfortunately there’s been people that have been brought to the table that, that are gonna make things like this when they happen a little bit more problematic and troublesome, you know, now that they feel like they have even more of a voice.

Uh, I saw a statement yesterday. They’re demanding that California got us all synthetic tracks. Um, I’ve seen that movie before. And we, we, we have, um, you know, and so it’s look, man, it’s not good. It’s not fun. Uh, I’m just hoping that, that the industry leaders will, will somehow find a way to kind of come together and come up with a plan to kind of try to get out of this.

Uh, I know that’s, uh, a little bit of a nerve wracking statement asking for them to, to all work together, but I’m hopeful that in this time of like immense need, they’ll kind of find a way. To, to, uh, to dig down deep and try to find a way to work together. You have any ideas specifically, and we haven’t talked about this off air, so I’m totally putting you on the spot.

Any idea specifically of the kinds of things that you could see doing to help? I worry that we’re in a PR crisis here where the genie’s out of the bottle, where any time something goes wrong, you’re going to be in the crawl on, on ESPN. And again, you’re never going to get a situation where you have. Zero equine fatalities in California for a year or the kind of thing that might get the attention, not paid to this.

Again, I do think that genie in the bottle analogy is fair, but do you think there are things meaningful changes that could occur that that could help this? When you talk about the governing bodies of the sport? I think they’re trying to do things that are, that are going to reduce the cost, reduce those things happening.

But no, I don’t believe there’s really much left to be done. I mean, not much left. I’m just saying, you know, look, we, we they’re working to get the race day medication situation sorted out when we don’t have horses that are running, that are unfit, uh, more accountability for the trainers and the owners. Um, I think would be, it would be a, a S a step that can help with making sure that we have sound horses, um, on the, on the racetrack.

Um, I, I think the, the, the situation yesterday is a little bit different, considering that it happened at the dirt crossing, coming down the downhill turf course, I’ve watched a lot of downhill turn of horse racing and, and, you know, there, there is something to be said about that transition. So maybe they need to take a look at that.

I mean, you just got to look at everything, but no, all eyes are on us. And, you know, Jeremy ballon wrote a piece. I think actually, ironically, if that’s the right use of the term, maybe you maybe yesterday he released a piece saying like, what w what, you know, this is all fine, but like, what’s going to happen when a horse breaks down because it’s gonna happen.

And it happened to come true a little bit sooner than I think we all would’ve liked. Um, and the worst part about it, Pete is like, It’s probably going to happen in the next 14 days. Again, it probably is. So like we talked about before, I don’t know the answer to what is the unacceptable amount of equine death?

I mean, I think one is too many. But, but it’s, it’s inevitable. So, so, so how do we work backwards from that to try to reduce it, to get it as close to zero as possible? Yeah. We’re also just in an absolute PR crisis. I just can’t believe that appeared on the crawl on ESPN last night. I, you got to knock me over with a feather, the, the level of scrutiny.

Um, it’s going to be very hard for the sport to hold it up. It would be again, I mean, I’ll go back to the pet. Analogy. It’s the, I’m sure there’s all kinds of horrible stats. You could find about pet ownership that would make people think twice before supporting the pet ownership industry. If they weren’t already, if they weren’t already involved.

It’s a very complicated relationship that we, that we have with animals and I, and I’m a real. Animal lover. And I have some sympathy for the point of view. I have a lot of sympathy for the basic instinct of the point of view of people who want to make the world better for animals. And who’ve you animals rights almost like people’s rights.

I’m not, I’m not, I don’t go all the way there. But I have sympathy for the point of view. I can say that very honestly, but the other huge problem is that none of these folks want to acknowledge is that if PETA had their way and racing were banned tomorrow, the first point of the first byproducts of that is.

Then this is a good use of ironically going to be thousands and thousands of dead animals, because there, there ain’t going to be a place to put all the ones who’ve been bred to do this. These horses are they’re bred to race. I have no question. We can do a better job taking care of them during, and especially after their racing, careers are over.

But. It ain’t like there’s a home for everyone, not dissimilar to tie it back to the dogs and cats to the way it is with pets. All right. I think we’ve put enough on that. I’m sure we’re going to be talking about it again. And you know, I hope folks. I mean, it’s ugly and I hope folks don’t get too upset hearing about it, but you know, this is important stuff that we need to be thinking about and reacting to and prepared to talk to people in the outside world about too, because unfortunately, Uh, the, as you said, the eyes of the world are honest at this point.

Okay. Why don’t we go back and talk about some racing stuff from this weekend. Let’s start with the Florida Derby JK. Yeah. Uh, you know, obviously a, a race that has, has, has, um, caused some conversation and created some conversation and some debate. Over over, um, uh, tactics. I think, I think a lot of people are questioning or wondering about the ride that Javier gave on the, or hidden scroll, uh, who didn’t, who didn’t run all that well.

So calm down, everyone, everyone wants to get worked up because he, you know, he finished kind of, you know, I don’t know what he’s fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, or whatever, but I think the important thing to understand when it comes to that situation is it. And I try to say it as best as I could in a tweet is okay.

Well, look, I, I give Javier some blame, you know, I, I think that that, uh, that professional athletes are gonna make mistakes and that’s, you’re allowed to make mistakes, but as fans and supporters of it, We’re allowed to comment on those mistakes, as long as we do it with, you know, within respect and not, you know, I’m not attacking your family or you as a human being.

Um, I think it was a poor ride by Javier. I think Javier is a better rider than me and a better writer than most. So I’m not trying to like knock him. I just think that there was a mistake made there a mistake that I see that often happens. And that mistake is the idea that when you have a speed horse going slower early is going to help that horse finish.

And I couldn’t disagree with that more. And I blame that. I blame when jockeys make those mistakes, whether too fast or too slow, too slow. I’ll give too slow. Whether it’s too slow. They’re far back to slower on the front end, too slow. Those things happen because of the knee jerk reaction of, of fans and trainers, attacking riders for being aggressive, like Joel Rosario was attacked for what he did and the fountain of youth.

I think that’s a fair comment. This was a situation to me where I don’t think it was rider error. As much as my gut tells me, this was by design, from connections who I think were not as concerned with getting the points and getting to the Kentucky Derby as they were with trying to teach the horse a new dimension or something.

Now I hate the decision. It was obvious, terrible tactics, frankly. It was a slow pace this time, the horses. Wrangled back, ends up running up other horses behinds for half a mile. You know, me, I am the biggest Belmont fan in the world or close to it. I’m sure there are a few who, you know, have horses with them and such you could take that mantle from me, but in terms of just HorsePlayers, there’s nobody, I respect more than him.

And, and I was just, uh, my Palm was hitting my forehead. Listening to the post-race comments about how well the horse was traveling and all this. I wouldn’t think the horse particularly ever looked comfortable. I mean, he did end up in a spot where if he was as good as arrogant would have finished and won, but you know, that’s a lot to expect of a horse in his third career start.

There’s no question. He still had a chance after that. But there’s also no question to me. He didn’t get to show how good he was and he was not given his best chance to succeed in this spot. For me, obviously the Derby, it ain’t going to work out now there won’t be able to get the points. Um, if they just awarded horses based on likelihood of winning, I’d still think he’d be an interesting long shot.

Going forward. It sounds like the plan now is to cut back. I don’t get it JK. I wish this horse had a chance to go long and just use his speed. The brilliance he showed in the early fractions he set on the second day and what he did on the first day. Yeah, I get it. It was sloppy, but the figure was so fast and there was so much against him for him to run that big.

This is a horse we haven’t. He’s not a super horse, but we still haven’t scratched the ability in my opinion of how good he can be agree or disagree. Oh, I completely agree. I don’t. I said yesterday, I don’t think we’ve seen his real ratio. We don’t know what he is. He’s had two terrible kind of trips. And the last two races, and then he had the, the sloppy performance on debut.

You don’t never know what he is, but he, like you said, you said a couple of things, you got a couple thoughts. You said something about, um, if he was good enough from that spot, he could have won. And that’s true if he was good as well, super horse, you know, I mean, if it was like, I think of arrogant in the, in the Dubai world cup, you know what I mean?

I mean, talk about a horse that every excuse to pack it in and still one. Yeah, they can do it, but it’s a lot to ask, but here’s the thing though. Irrigate is, was like Aaron Rogers, right? He, he could, he had, he could run, he could beat you with his legs, his arm, with accuracy, with the big ball, with his brain.

He was a complete race horse that could do so many things. That’s why he was great. I E Aaron Rogers, but when you’re dealing with, with a horse, like hidden scroll is, is, is someone who’s a bit more one dimensional, okay. Maybe a little bit more Tom Brady, where he’s not going to beat you in his legs. He’s an only beat you with two or three or four things.

And he’s really stinking good at those two or three or four things. But if you ask Tom Brady to run quarterback, draw 17 times a game, he’s not going to win. And that’s what they were doing. They were asking hidden scroll to be something that he’s not. And, and, and, and that’s the problem that I see with the situation.

That’s not his strength. Now. I talked to Nick Tamra yesterday, and this was his, he had some great insight on this idea and it’s something that we definitely remind him that we need to have him on the shore show more. Um, but he made a baseball analogy to what they were, what they were trying to do. If that was the instructions to try to teach him to which I think they must have been.

I, I we’ve seen Javier give too many rides in similar situations. Don’t you think? It just felt like riding two instructions. It felt like it. And, and, and to Nick’s point, it was that, you know, I, you know, I’m not a baseball guy, but you know, there’s like that, that one game play off to get into the playoff thing that they have.

Sometimes it’s like saving your it’s, like not pitching your ACE then because you want to have them for the playoffs. Yeah. There is no playoffs, big fella. There is no Derby. If you don’t, if you don’t run your race today. And that’s what happened, there is no Derby. So they pitched, they pitched their third guy cause they wanted to keep their ACE.

And now they’re there now they’re going fishing in October.

Oh, that’s pretty good. Actually, I dig that Nick is a, he’s a sharp fellow. We do have to have him on here more. Lots of, to unpack from the race. I mean, it’s tough, right? As sporting fans, all I’ll do all wheel in the Dubai world cup here a little. When I talk about maximum security. As betters, we see thunder snows, Dubai world cup, and as a fan and as a better, I just see it two totally different ways as a fan.

Wow. That’s awesome. This horse with his star cross Derby. Who’s a group, one winner, I think on turf who now has one to do by world cups that as a sporting fan, like that’s just awesome. Who wouldn’t love to write that story from a narrative point of view. That’s my fan hat. And then. You put on your better hat and you look at the ridiculous trap bias and the other favorite not speed, or it’s not breaking that led to the Dubai world cup 12 months ago.

And you look at this one where you had a couple of inexplicable, no shows. And I mean, Circumstances really conspiring to make him. I mean, he, I’m not saying he didn’t deserve the win, but as somebody who’s looking to make the bet next time, did he like really impress? No, I feel like in a lot of ways he had it handed to him on a silver platter now.

There are a lot of people. What happened with the way this typically goes is the people with that second point of view, the sort of more cynical handicapper point of view make so much noise on Twitter, about how fortunate the horse was that they really upset the fans. And I don’t want to do that. I want to acknowledge.

That the fans from a fan point of view, have a great story to root for and, uh, horse, not many horses have the talent with, even with circumstances in their favor to win two by two Dubai world cups nobody’s ever done it before, or just as one little piece of evidence of that. So it’s great. And give him his props as an equine athlete as a better.

I’m not interested in the next time. And that brings us back to maximum security. You want to talk about having a race handed to you on a silver platter? How about your main competition just decides, eh, we’re not going to go for the lead today. Let’s pull back. Let’s run up other horses behind for the first, uh, six for along to the race.

And let’s let this other horse waltz on the lead untested. And when I can’t wait to bet against maximum security the next day. J K your thoughts? Well, I really want to see, I’m very curious that, and obviously it’ll, it’ll happen quite a bit in the lead up to the Kentucky Derby. I want to see how many different ways Jason service is going to answer the question.

Why did you run this horse for 16,000 on debut? Um, cause I, I heard somewhere that, you know, well, I don’t want to say what I heard, but I just want to hear like, what you know, is it wasn’t it was, he, was he like a sore horse? Was it, did he not seem right? Then you have an issue. Why w at what point did you decide you want to run the horse for 16?

The other thing that I brought up is I’m not a hundred percent sure that this horse. Is that he’s fooled anyone that he’s like gonna win the Kentucky Derby. And let’s not forget that he’s got the same ownership group has game winner. So there’s an opportunity there for, for some games and then ship that could take place on the first Saturday in may, um, with, with a horse that has some tactical speed that could be for that, I think would need a bus ticket to get a mile.

So are you implying that you think he could be used as a, like a little bit of a de facto rabbit for game winner potentially? Absolutely. I mean, look just sometimes if you take a deep breath and you put yourself in a situation, um, you know, you’ll, you, you can, you can, you can realize, uh, what someone else might do.

And if I had those two horses, I would say, look, I want maximum security to be written as if he’s going to be loose on the lead. And I want him to try to get to the front end and try to wire the field or be best of speed. He’s not going to win in a mile and a quarter race against 20 horses being rated and trying to finish and pass horses and then hold off closers.

It’s just not going to happen. So let’s put him in the race. Let’s go 46 and change. Let’s let’s know that, that we’re getting some pace in front of us. We’ll take game winner back, make one run. He wants to run all day and he’ll come rolling down the middle of a track that he’s proven to. Like, it does make a lot of sense.

Now, when you look at this race, the old-school handicapper and BC’s maximum security. Winning the horse that was entered that you could have bought for 16 dimes, you know, fairly recently. And you see the maiden second and you say, Ugh, what terrible form this race is going to have. But the more I look at it, JK and the, the flow handicapper that I’ve become.

I see a couple of horses in here I might be interested in and at the top of the list is code of honor. And it just gets back to that idea of the way. That pace can mask what the final results of a race are. And code of honor, rallying into the dawdle already in good position with his Derby points to potentially use this race as more of a prep than a beat cranked up and try to have to definitely have to win, to get in the big race that wasn’t the situation.

This could have been a true prep for a trainer and Shugg McGeehee who. Knows how to use a prep to get a horse ready for a big race is going to very likely the we’ll see, but it is very likely in a 20 horse field is going to see the opposite pace scenario. I have not looked at the time form us coding in the chart, but I’m going to assume this was an all blue and I’m going to assume that the Kentucky Derby is going to be in all red coat of honor, maybe a little bit under the radar.

Chance to run really big for me in the Kentucky Derby. He’s the one I want out of it, but I think you could probably make that case about a few of the closers for you. JK leaving hidden scroll aside because he will not be competing. Who’s the horse out of the Florida Derby that you want. As of now in the Kentucky Derby, we won’t make you have this be your final answer.

We’ll be doing a final answers podcast at some point about the Kentucky Derby. But as of now, who do you want from here? So you have two choices, you have a choice, like you mentioned to think of it as it was a slow pace race. And, and there is, uh, horses that we’re trying to close into a slow pace, or you can say, uh, you can have a variation of our friend Mike Maloney statement that you have in the book bedding with an edge.

There is no trips in bad races, slow races, excuse me. So I just think it was a slow race. And I just don’t think that like, cause I didn’t like bourbon war or code of honor, and the fact that they ran third and fourth with an 80 to one that chased a former 16 claimer. I just, I don’t, I don’t want any of the horses out of that race.

That’s my initial thought that could change. But as of right now, I don’t want any of them. I think code of honor will be a huge sucker play. He’ll be a wise guy play. He’s going to take these, the type of horses. And I go off at eight to one, 10 to one, 12 to one in any should be 15, 20, 25 to one in that race.

That’s just my prediction of how it’s going to all unfold. I think he’ll be a wiseguy horse. We’ll see who shows up, uh, and what the price is in the end. But I mean, my gut is that a 10 sounds. Okay. I mean, I don’t know. I guess it all depends on what happens next weekend, but, and it’s not like I’m interested in taking eight to 10 right now in the future on him.

I wonder if the opportunity might come sooner rather than later for those, with the. Uh, ability as many of the listeners are we’ve picked up. I’ve been looking at the numbers. We’ve picked up plenty of, uh, UK and Irish listeners from my recent work over on sky, and also on the final Furlong podcast, sky sports racing that is.

Those people who have the ability to bet. Now take a look at what’s going on with code of honor. The opportunity might be now before any of that wise guy ness gets into the pool. And it’s just another reminder to me, JK. Of how much better fixed odds betting is than this parimutuel stuff. There’s just so many situations where, and I mean, it was very similar to what we talked about with a cold front on the last podcast.

I’m on final Furlong advising and people are getting nine to one that morning. He’s eight to one. People are actually able to get money down at these numbers, even in the end on Betfair he goes into four to one that is a lot better than the five to two. You were worried about him being, and we’re correct in tote bedding about him being, he did go off at exactly a five to two, a fat five to, to seven 80.

He ended up paying. And, uh, I’m going to just have to ask you J K. Since, when do you turn up your nose at five to two on an easy winner. I’ll never turn my nose in a five to two. I, I barely turn my nose at a four to five. My problem, there was just the way that those pools are designed. I knew the horse was going to be a quote unquote, over bet.

And I’ve tried to have this conversation with, with other players recently, like hindsight is great, but don’t act as if you, you you’re smarter than you thought you were after, you know, after, you know, the result. Right. Like I still believe that he was over bet. Yes, he won, but it wasn’t like he won easily.

And I just felt like there was going to be other value on other horses in that style of pool where the American horses are often over. Bet, I’ll tell you, I’ve noticed this. And this is really for the UK Irish listeners, but the international markets are underrating. These USA horses in dirt races. We were able to take advantage of it with some nice each way hits and the plays we talked about on final Furlong.

Yeah. As well as those winners, including the one that, uh, that JK was too stuck up to bed. Did you see the video of Todd watching the race though? That was very, very fun. Watching someone who’s won so many big races still have one low. He still went right-hand in one good time. I wouldn’t be in trouble in any jurisdiction.

We should also mention and yeah. Frankly, you get some credit for this, but really we’re going to deflect all the credit to our man. Frank McGaughey who put PLU K parfait on our radar earlier this winter scoring 15 to one, even in the towed pool, in the UAE Derby. That winter, by the way, JK close to 26 to one on Betfair another example of, uh, exchanges and fixed odds and the wonderful things they do for the horse player, but great job by you in remembering that one and, uh, bringing the goods on the podcast.

As we’ve said, many times, you can’t stop rock and roll and you can’t stop the, in the money players podcast. That’s an old handicapping thing that I kind of picked up, um, probably in like 2015, where I really like learned about, I learned about surrounding yourself with smart people and remembering the things that they say.

And that was a situation where I just, I remembered that Frank liked the horse and he liked the horse off training off of trips and all of these things. And I, you know, look, it’s when you surround yourself with smart people that have good opinions. Sometimes those opinions can blindly lead you to good opportunities.

It’s, it’s something that I, I, you know, I think I probably picked up like, it like Saratoga, right? Where like you hear about the next best thing, but he gets beat and he gets beat again, and then he’s trying something new and everyone forgot that at one time he was this talented, well thought of horse. And then they come back around and they win at a price that, that sometimes can be ignored.

I think Avery Island is actually an example of that horse won a one turn mile race. I think an aqueduct after being the quote unquote best care in two year old, and didn’t do anything at Saratoga. Came back and wanted a pretty nice price later in the year. Eventual stakes winner, too, that information was correct.

The horse just wasn’t going to do his best running six furlongs needed that extra ground. And I agree. This is why horse to watch lists are such a good thing. There are several places. Online where you can set up your own sort of stable male horse to watch list, whatever you want to call it. All right. We are not doing a full length show today.

We’re going to go about 45 minutes because we’ve got so much content coming down the pike this week. We’re going to go with the keen Lynn select players podcast. That’s what we’re going to call those. It sounds ridiculous, but semi-daily shows they’re not really daily, but they’re going to be extra shows.

Only focusing on Keene Lynn, we’ll do two of those a week. In addition to our two main flagship in the money players podcast. That means there are going to be four podcasts appearing in our feed for the Qianlong meeting. We encourage you fully to dive in to the Keeneland content, but it’s not like if you’re somebody who just doesn’t have the time or whatever, you can stick with the flagship shows and you’re going to get all the highlights.

But if you really want all the nitty gritty, all the winners, all the best information about what’s going on at Keeneland, you’re going to want to listen to those keen select players, podcasts that still leaves us a few minutes, JK, to do a little bit of ask ITM. How about this one? Uh, we talked about baseball before we just had baseball opening day.

We bring in a little baseball here. Nick wants to know Pete Rose only bet in support of his own team. He didn’t bet every game, the implication being when he didn’t wager on them, they were more likely to lose. Should a horse owner be allowed to wager on or against their horse? Should this information be known to the public?

I’ll let you take a swing at that one. Well, I get the, I get the question. Um, and you know, I’ve played in a contest before where a gentleman, uh, hit a horse that he had and hit the horse. Big. I don’t so much have a problem with it. Maybe in the contest setting. I like what they do. You have to, you have to, you know, um, announce.

Uh, you know, if you have ownership in a horse and you have to either bet on that horse or you have to pass on the race. So I, I kinda liked that. I think it’s probably too hard to try to police in terms of, of doing it and out in the open, uh, with just a regular term neutral situation. Cause look, I’ll just have my cousin or my nephew or my housekeeper or my whatever, you know, do the, do the bedding for me.

I, I just, I don’t think it matters enough to make a difference. Fair enough. I do get the idea and I don’t think you’re technically, isn’t there some rule with trainers and it might apply to owners too, that you can technically, again, enforceability aside only bet on your horse, in the win position, para mutually, at least in some States, have you ever heard of anything like that?

Heard of it. I’ve heard of it. And like I said, I’ve had a problem with it because here’s the thing, here’s the, here’s the secret. And I hate to ruin it for everyone. The trainers, the owners and the jockeys.

Are you getting into it? This old expression was mentioned to me the other day on Twitter, not to me, but thrown out there in the world on Twitter by Dave gut friend about our friend, our mutual friend, the late great Jeff Sackman, whose phrase. Whenever the steam horse went down or whatever accepted knowledge was, the lie was put to the accepted knowledge.

Nobody knows nothing. And I think that does sum it up a lot of times. And that gets to another question we had JK and we talked about this a little bit the other day, but about maiden races. And whether or not this comes up in contests a lot. The idea that maiden races are somehow these tremendous benefits run for insiders.

Do you buy that idea at all? Well, I think there’s definitely an edge when there’s an edge to, to know what people are thinking to know what people who are spending a lot of time around the barns. A lot of time on the backs of the horses. A lot of times training the horses. They have more information than you and I have.

It doesn’t mean they’re always right. But I will always want to go into a maiden race, you know, especially the high profile one with people’s opinion on their horse, not much needs longer needs ground. Um, Mr. Work, um, you know, you didn’t get the Gallup boom, cause he had this, but we need to get us started.

Um, cause we got to have them ready for team. These are things that I want to know and I don’t care what anyone says. You’re better off having that information. It’s how you process the information that, that can, that can lead down good or bad paths. Um, so I, I don’t think it’s an insider’s game. I think it’s a, there’s a lot more information to be gathered in a lot less reliable information at that.

And there’s different kinds of insiders. I’m super interested in what professional Clockers have to say when it comes to horseman. I agree. I like to hear what they have to say, know what they have to say for future reference, but I think it is a hundred percent correct to say you will go broke blindly bedding, the so-called inside information from right.

But here’s a, here’s a, here’s one thing I will say, right? A specific trainer had two horses and it’d go stream on, on Saturday. Uh, one of them was that we looked like on paper, like couldn’t lose, but I just didn’t trust the horse. I was nervous about. So-and-so. So when the, when that trainer sent the message to a mutual friend and said, I trust this one, our other yes, to this one, I don’t trust the other one by him.

Not saying that there was a trust issue with the one that I was having the trust issue with was enough for me to kind of lean on that opinion that I had created from a handicapping standpoint only. I just wanted to make sure. They all systems were go. You’re also very good. One of your strengths, thanks is that ability to synthesize a lot of information.

A lot of people. Aren’t able to do that. If they start hearing information and then they want to throw out everything that they did themselves, and just go with the information that latter approach much, much bigger problem than your former approach, where you’re taking that info and sort of incorporating into what you were doing anyway.

And then the way that you write bets too, you’re using it. Not necessarily to put a horse in or take a horse out, but you’re using it to determine how much to bet that horse. It reminds me. We talked before about Mike Maloney. He’ll be joining us in downtown Lexington on Friday night for this event at Bell’s going to be a lot of fun, but he has a great line in bedding with an edge.

That he’ll always want to include these tipped horses in races, where he essentially like meaning in races where he’s spreading anyway, but you do not want to press them. Don’t take that touted Wesley ward first time starter and single, but don’t be a hero. And try to eliminate if the Infor, if you’re, if you have a smart way to bet it any way where you can include the horse and that information might just have some signal in it.

I think that’s the right way to fly at the end of the day, when it comes to the so-called inside information. If you can take information, negative information on the first or second choice, and you can build around not using that horse, you’ll be shocked how much equity you end up with. Ended up having on that ticket by not using that horse.

It’s it’s, it’s tremendous. It’s tremendously powerful. If, if you can withstand the times where they tell you no, and the thing runs anyways, you have to be prepared for that. That happens frequently. But I will say this in equity terms in my life anyway, and then we’ll get, if you agree or disagree, I have done better on information in my lifetime where I got negative.

Suppose it inside information about a horse than where I got positive, positive insight information. Also, you have to, you learn, you start filtering the sources. You will occasionally find a source. That’s really good. But I would say of the positive insight information that I hear, I’m going to go so far as to say.

80% of it, 75% of it maybe is useless. Like, and I think part of that is the trainer likes the horse, but a lot of times the trainer won’t be able to sort of see beyond the end of his own shed row. Won’t necessarily know what else is in the race. I mean, I hope I don’t sound too patronizing and insulting here.

I don’t mean it that way. Trainers have a very different, very important job. They shouldn’t be. Worrying about stuff from a handicapping point of view necessarily they’ve got other fish to fry. So I don’t mean this to be judgy. I just mean that information for whatever it means for whatever it’s worth.

It doesn’t necessarily help me. In fact, it might actively hurt me from the handicapping side, the negative horses, those anti-tax they will, when you had an one recently with a Navarro horse, I remember taking you out of something big JK, but. On balance. I do find them more valuable. How about you? The negatives are definitely more powerful than the positives, but you know, the positives are just great to use as, as a tie breaker.

Right? If you’re trying to decide, am I going to use this horse? I kind of don’t want to, I like to look for any, if I don’t want to use a horse, I try to look for anything negative. To, to, to push me over the edge of having the, the, the, the, the courage to leave the horse off. Yeah. Like for instance, in a horse, it’s like, you know, 10 to one, and I think he can run, but I also don’t want to waste money on him if he, if he’s not going to run.

So let me find out. And then you text and you get a text that says, Uh, really worried about the outside posts doesn’t break well, and, uh, you know, probably needs cover. That’s that’s just enough for me to get off the 10 to one shot that I was on the fence about anyways. Um, you just, you can’t take it too seriously and you can’t ignore it too much.

All right. I have one more point to make the ties back. Several of the things we’ve been talking about, we talked about the bill Mont reaction to the hidden scroll race. We’ve talked a couple of times about Mike Maloney and betting with an edge, by the way. And I got back from England. I had two giant new cases of bedding with an edge of books upstairs.

I’ll bring some of them on Friday night, folks who haven’t read it, please. Um, send me a tweet, send me an email through the site. If you want a copy, we will get you a copy best to buy it directly from me at this point, that would be much appreciated, but my goal also tells a story in there about meeting at a bar or something, just in a social encounter, getting to have a deep racing conversation with a hall of fame trainer.

Who was like completely unaware of attract bias had that had been dictating the outcome of races on the card. He was puzzled by why a horse ran so bad. That was three wide on a, all the way around on a golden rail. That type of thing. Again, they’re very different jobs and we don’t say this stuff to denigrate them.

They’re they’re doing something very different than what we’re doing. We can respect that. We can take what we need from it. But if it came down to a handicapping contest, you give me a bunch of hall of fame trainers and you give me, let me pick my team of players. Horse players are going to beat them senseless, like a drum, just a different, like you said, it’s comparing apples to oranges.

It’s a different, uh, it’s a different, it’s a different deal, you know? Um, it, it, I would compare it to like a basketball coach. Um, you know, trying to tell you who to bet on and in a, in a, in a basketball game, it’s they can get you insight about their team. They can give you insight, but they can’t tell you.

If, if minus seven at a hundred and minus one 40 juice is a problem or not. So there’s, it’s just a different ball game that, that we’re all playing and it works both ways. At the same time, you could give me a really great horseplayer and, you know, as I joke to you, JK, you, you work on the backstretch for two days.

You’re going to get. Kicked inside of an hour, you know, and, and it’s the same for me. It’s, it’s very different, uh, very different skill sets on offer. And the other example, I, I always think of with this stuff is the idea that just because you know how to build the plane doesn’t mean, you know, how to. Fly it it’s it’s they’re they’re related.

There might be insight from one field to another, but they’re, they’re just, they’re just very different enterprises and it’s a mistake to expect one, to be the other. Do you have a closing thought for this episode of the, in the money players podcast, JK? Well, we started with some Cali talking. Well, I want to point out a couple of things in California.

We, that I thought we, uh, we did good, but more to, to celebrate one of our friends of the show. But, um, river Boyne was a play against, based on LASIK situation. I don’t know if, if the, if it was a Lasix that involved that caused the horse to run like he did, but, uh, our friend, Mike McCarson with a, another grade, one win with Ohio.

Uh, out there on the front killer awhile, we were happy to see that. And then also St. Joe Bay was another podcast horse, and I didn’t even get to, to participate in. I was running around. I was in Chicago. I had an Austin. I was playing in the contest. And that race wasn’t involved in the contest. And I completely missed the St.

Joe Bay who paid like 30 something bucks. Those were good shout outs to give. And again, we had a nice, we had a nice little go on the pod. Speaking of Hawthorne props to Frank moose, starry sire of Justin Neustar from the world HorsePlayers tour show who got the win. We’ll send out info when that. A TV show gets produced and uploaded somewhere online.

I’m curious to watch and check that out. Did you see any of the TV production stuff where you, uh, were, were you privy to any of that? Did you get any screen time JK? That was in the mix. Yeah, I got a good one liner in, I said, uh, asked, you know, who are you scared of? I said, any guy with a last name was starry, pretty good and prophetic.

As it turned out with Frank’s big win. I’ve never written about him. It would be fun. Uh, let’s see if I can pick up an assignment somewhere to do a review of that. My, my pro bono contests. Uh, writing days are probably over with as busy as we are with this show. And that busy-ness is going to include two extra shows and the live show this week, when will we come back?

Wednesday? Will we put out the first edition of the Caitlin select players podcast that worked for you? You know, I’m just living in your world. You tell me, there you go. Wednesday. We’ll do a show. We’ll preview the meat a little bit. We will talk a little Thursday and Friday at Keeneland. We’ll come back on Thursday with a regular weekend show Friday.

We’ll do a show or at least post a show covering Sunday, Keeneland and Friday night at bells. Come join us after the races, approximately six 45, seven o’clock we’re just going to head down there when things finish up at Keeneland and we will go from there and that’s it for this edition of the, in the money players podcast.

I want to thank Jonathan kitchen. Want to thank our friends once again at the thoroughbred retirement foundation. The important work they’re doing, there’s never been a better time to support an organization like that. If you give through our link with them, we get the credit. That’s the way you can really help the show.

We’re going to be learning a lot more about the great work at TRF over the coming months, T R F Inc. Org slash players. You guys have done a great job with donations so far. We want you to keep those donations coming in throughout the triple crown season and throughout the year. Also want to thank our friends at 10 strike racing for their continued support.

Have to get Marshall back on here soon. That’ll be a lot of fun going to see them. On Arkansas Derby weekend, I’ll be out there guest lecturing at Marshall’s class, and then heading out to the 10th strike party. Really looking forward to hanging out with the Burquette clan and everybody else out at hot Springs, we will be back on Wednesday.

Just one more reminder. This podcast has been a production of in the money media in the money media’s business manager is drew Kourtney. We are going to see you real soon. I’m Peter Thomas foreign, a towel. But you went all your photos.

hello and welcome. This is I forgot my, the opening to my own show.